January 2011 Releases

Our January 2011 releases are now available!

TWO ALL-INSTRUMENTAL LPs FROM FREDDY KING, THE GUITARIST IDOLIZED BY ERIC CLAPTON, PETER GREEN, STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN AND MANY OTHERS.

Although his career was tragically cut short by his death at the age of 42, Freddie King was one of America’s most distinctive and influential electric blues guitarists, leaving an indelible mark on more than one generation of guitar superstars, including Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Rolling Stones’ Mick Taylor. The Texas-born axeman began playing guitar at the age of six, and in his teens moved with his family to the South Side of Chicago, where he was inspired by witnessing club gigs by such seminal electric bluesmen as Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers and Elmore James. Originally billed as Freddy King, he began recording in 1957, revealing a massively influential style that merged his Texas and Chicago influences, and soon achieved commercial success with a series of infectious instrumental hits.

Sundazed Music’s new vinyl editions of these electric blues landmarks have been sourced from the original mono masters, and pressed on 180-gram vinyl. Both albums include exact reproductions of their original LP cover art.

Freddy KingLet’s Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King

180 Gram Vinyl LP: $18.98 • LP 5364

King scored his biggest hit with 1961’s “Hide Away,” which became his signature tune; it also became a standard for bluesy bar bands on both sides of the Atlantic, and a regular feature of Eric Clapton’s live sets. King followed “Hide Away” with a memorable series of self-penned instrumental hits, including the blues standards “San-Ho-Zay” and “The Stumble.” The aforementioned tunes are all featured on King’s all-instrumental 1961 LP Let’s Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King. Originally released on the legendary King label, it remains one of the most influential guitar albums of all time, and demonstrates why King remains a guitar icon.

King’s second all-instrumental album, Freddy King Gives You a Bonanza of Instrumentals, originally released in 1965 on King Records’ Federal subsidiary, continued the artist’s winning streak, with such memorable King originals as “Manhole,” “Freeway 75,” “Low Tide” and “Funnybone.” The 12-song LP demonstrates once again why King was one of his generation’s most revered electric guitarists.

Of all the American rock bands that embraced the blues in the 1960s, none took their musical mission more seriously than Canned Heat. The California quintet, led by vocalists Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson and Bob “The Bear” Hite and featuring the brilliant guitarist Henry Vestine, combined fiery instrumental chops with a vast knowledge of blues history. Canned Heat quickly carved out a unique niche in that heady era, making high-profile appearances at Woodstock and other notable rock festivals, and managing to break into the pop singles charts without diluting their sound.

Canned Heat’s eponymous 1967 debut LP, released shortly after their attention-getting performance at the Monterey International Pop Music Festival, introduced the band’s audacious synthesis of blues tradition and electrified boogie. The 11-song album features raw, fiercely soulful interpretations of material by such blues masters as Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Sonny Boy Williamson, powered by Wilson and Hite’s contrasting vocal styles and Vestine’s explosive fretwork. The result is one of the most distinctive and dynamic blues-rock recordings of the ’60s, and the album that launched Canned Heat’s five-decade musical journey.

This new vinyl edition of this landmark debut effort has been sourced from the original mono masters and pressed on 180-gram vinyl, and features a meticulous reproduction of the LP’s original cover art.